GIna devotees only - how & when didyou start trying to put baby in a routine?

[bodenbetty]

I don't want to start anything contentious - just windering how to go about starting teh whole routine thing. DD is only 10 days so probably a little young just yet but am trying to think ahead. her idea of night & mine don't coincide but have stared feeding her in the dark from 7pm on hoping she will get teh message!

I didn't begin until dd was about 2-3 months old, it seemed an impossible task at first but acctually came quite quickly once I started it. She slept thru the night immediately. Sounds like you have the right idea giving her different night associations from daytime ones. Fill daytime with fun and noise and singing and playing and make night time quiet and calm and if possible, dark! She'll soon catch on. Best of luck!

argh Gina thread alert, always ends in tears!

well hun i have 2 dds first is 15 months old and she went onto the GF routine at 3 months old. My second is 3 weeks old and began the routine with her when we got home from hospital.

There is no way a new born will fit exactly into the times of the GF routine, it is something to aim for so heres how i have done it. below is the routine for a newborn.

7am rise and shine, bottle, nappy change and awake till 8.30am. 8.30am-10am nap 10am, bottle nappy change, top and tail, 11.15 rest of bottle, nap at 11.30 - 2.00am, 2.00am up and bottle nappy change awake until 3.30, then nap till 5pm. half a bottle, bath 6.15 rest of bottle and into bed 7pm.

thats the books routine... heres how it went with elsie and me.

7am, i wake her and give her her first bottle. Change her nappy then lie her under play gym for as long as she is happy. she used to get tired for 8am so i would put her down then and just give her till 10am like the routine, i would NEVER try to keep her awake...now though at three weeks she can last the hour and a half happily so goes down 8.30am. The about 9.45am i go in to her room which isnt blackouted out at the routine says, as she is so young yet it doesnt need to be, i unwrap the swaddle and give her 15 mins to wake up. if she wont wake up i would pick her up, take her cloths off as it is very hot and fan her with a towel to create a little breeze..that would wake her, though now she wakes herself fine. i would then give her 3 quarters of her bottle and amuse her. sometimes she will get sleepy about 10.45 so i will top and tail her to refresh her and then at 11.15 offer rest of bottle and settle into bed. i use a dummy to wind her down, and put her down a little awake so she settles herself, have never had her crying for more than a minute before going off to sleep but for the record if she did i would pick her up and offer more feed or a cuddle to get her to sleep. she is too young to be given more than five mins to settle. sometimes when she was younger she would fall asleep at 10.45 so i would just put her to bed and wake her at 2.00pm. at 2pm, i again unswaddle her, allow her time to wake up, give a bottle, amuse till about 3.00. she cant last till 3.30 yet so i just put her down half an hour earlier than the routine and get her up a 5pm. bottle, bath and she normally falls asleep by six...an hour earlier than routine. I then just put her down at six and wake her at 10pm for last feed and settle her for 11pm.. sometimes she may wake at nine, i will feed her, try to keep her awake as long as possible which may take her to 10.30 then put her down, she will then wake once in the night as she has done from birth at about 3am has a quick half hour feed then back to sleep till i wake at seven.

this is a long post but wanted you to see that the routine is adaptable, its a guideline that eventually,by doing the above and sticking to waking times and feeding times, have a baby that will happily begin to fit into the 'right times' as soon as he/she is physically capable. My first dd also is on the 7 till 7 routine and it works fab, have no trouble keeping them both on it and it meanss DH and I get a good three hours in the evening together before last feed. hope that helps

I don't think this one will end in tears - people have too much respect for MN to post anything negative.

Which means that you'll only get glossy answers though, BodenBetty

i know many parents who ahve started from 2 weeks

1 family i know was VERY strict and followed it to the letter...

they now have a VERY happy 3 year old who has ALWAYS slept well, AND she still sleeps 13+ hours a night! (7pm - 8am+ / 7.30pm - 8.30+am)

it worked for them (though she was an only child and life did literally revolve around the routine which i KNOW does not suit all, but DID suit them!)

by the way i COMPLETELY agreee with you happy bee..

thanks Nanny

i have to say with my first DD my life did revolve around the routine...but this time not so. i take DD1 to wacky warehouse on a tuesday morning: i get ready to leave for 8.30 thats when DD2 goes for her morning nap, meanign she can sleep in the car on the way. when we get there about 9am i can play with DD1 whilst DD2 carries on sleeping and then i can wake DD2 at 10am to keep her on track. If she feeds and gos straight back to sleep...so be it...if she stays awake, even better! i also take both babies to playgroups twice a week i have just found ones that suit the routine times. we all went strawberry picking yesterday...this time round i am a lot wiser and i know you do not have to be limited by having a routine, just be prepared to be flexible, and if things dont go to plan...its not the end of the world! just try to get back on track when you can.

3 weeks, the only thing I regret was not starting earlier, DS was much better since we introduced it.

Any routine time is just a guide not a dogma. Baby it's not meant to be hungry ever, if he is hungry before meal times you just need to feed him/her immediatly and for longer to insure routine doesn't get out of track. Cuddles at sleep time are mandatory, she just ask to place baby in his sleeping space when she is half asleep.

Problem with GF book is that is not very well written and it lends itself to misunderstandings, I confess to have read each chapter a couple of times before being sure about what was she actually suggesting.

i would add that if a routine like GF causes the mother to become totally stressed and upset about 'not getting it right' just so stop following it, at the end of the day having a routine is there to give your day a bit of structure and to help you meet the needs of your baby and yourself, if its not doing that and just upsetting, then dont follow it

or you could spend the next month or two just getting into the swing of things (once you're past 10 - 12 weeks its really a different world anyway)

.. learning to read your baby's signals and how and when to respond .. the baby whisperer book has a chart on what different baby signals tend to mean .. so you can watch your baby and learn to interpret them

feeding on demand is fabulous once you understand that not every cry is a cry for food and I believe leads to a calmer and totally secure baby .. and feelings of security lead to confidence

I think if you consider allowing the relationship to develop naturally (ie as nature intends) you may find out you develop a relationship that gives you time to yourself and a huge bond with your child

unless your dead stuck on routines .. in which case good luck

With my first I only discovered GF when he was nearly 3m, by which time I'd already worked out the night-associations business, and also that I didn't need to feed him eveyr time he squeaked. I then used GF's basic structure and ideas to get into a routine that worked for us.

Wiht my second I tried to implement GF's routines from about 2w, but it never worked for us at that time. Partly because the routines for a 2wo just didn't mesh with my 2yo's needs and routines, but mostly because dd couldn't stay awake for more than 1.5h at a time until she was at least 2m, maybe even longer. Also, she was very difficult to settle during the day, and it was easier on ds if I just carried dd in a sling and got on with his life. But when dd was about 3-4m I started using GF's routines, again as I had with ds, using what worked for us. And, as before, GF, my babies and I got on very well.

I think Twiglett has hit the nail on the head. The Baby Whisperer and GF complement each other really well. They don't really say opposite things, it's more that they have different ways of achieving the same things: a baby that feeds well, sleeps well, is contented, and follows a comfortable and reassuring routine. Definitely read both books, and cherry-pick what works for you.

Cherry pick what suits you. I didn't do GF and did everything totally around my son. He is 3 and has slept 12-13 hours a night from around 9-10 months. Okay it wasn't 9-10 weeks but hey - it's not a race.

thnaks everyone. think I will gradully try to introduce it as you all suggest. Wish I could interpret her cries better though - at the momne ti just assume every cry is 1 for food as its so hot....
realyy appreciate your thoughts.BBx

bodenbetty

it is really hard at first i was the same as you, thought DD1s every cry meant food, but here are a couple of tips i used to work out what she really wanted! this was before GF routine though in the first three months of her life. DD1 seemed to want fed every hour (i was bottle feeding) and was constantly unhappy...i was desperate to space out her feeds a bit, and a friend suggested that when she showed signs of being hungry not long after a feed, to take her for a walk...if she was really hungry then she would keep screaming and so would need fed immediately, but most cases she would be distracted and settle down, meaning she wasnt really that hungry after all! If i couldnt go out i would offer her a dummy...if she was happy with the dummy again she couldnt be that hungry but if she spat it out and screamed then obviously she was! by using these tips DD1 stopped feeding every hour and began to last three or more hours of her own accord. hope thats of some use for you!

handy rule of thumb

if you've just fed and baby cries, burp him

if you've just fed and burped and baby cries, check /change nappy and then cuddle him

if you've just fed, burped and cuddled him and baby cries cuddle him some more

if he's been awake for 30 mins (at 10 days) to an hour (up to 3months) put him down to sleep

HTH

At about 3 months

I had never heard of said person when I had my first but I went for a good old fashioned 4 hr routine pretty much as soon as I got home. DS was a big healthy baby and took a good feed so he lasted 4hrs, If he cried after 2 hrs I didn't automaticly feed as I knew it probably wasn't hunger. Smaller babies and if they don't take as big a feed may only last 3hrs or so. Doesn't work for everyone either as some babies just don't do regular but I found the idea of demand feeding strange anyway but thats me.

I found the routine helped to get us both sorted out and helped with making "what the hell is he crying for" decisions easier.

Nothing wrong with giving good clear messages from the early days ie late feeds in the dark, start as you mean to go on

at 2 weeks. went from crying whingy baby to happy contented baby overnight (sorry about the pun)

I noticed DS started to fall into a little pattern at around 8 weeks.

By 3 months he was definitely into a fairly predictable pattern, so I sort of adjusted around it - some things to suit me, some to suit him.

I couldn;t follow any specific "routine" book regarding feeding, because as he was BF on demand, he wanted to feed much more often than GF would "allow", and usually slept after feeding, contrary to BW method!

btw I have demand fed dd3 from day one and she has been carried around and slept with me and been carted around from pillar to post, being fed whereever and whenever and now she is 12 weeks and sleeps 10 hours at night

(a routine is not the only way...enjoy them while they are so tiny, please!)

argh thats what i find so sad enid, the idea that by having a baby on a routine it means you cant enjoy them if that wasnt what you meant i apologise, but i am enjoying my DD2 very much and i still follow the GF routine...like i said in my earlier post if you are following a routine and it is doing more harm than good (stressing about baby not doing exactly as routine states for example) then i would really want to tell mums like that just to not follow any routine and relax...enjoying your baby is so important, i didnt with my first but it sure makes you appreciate a second chance...

Each to their own, but I ofund having dd and then ds in a routine suited them and also me. I therfore did enjoy them. Neither of them had prolonged bouts of crying and both of them slept well and have continued to do so. Whether this was because of having a routine or not I will never know. But I would do it again as it works for me and my family. I don't have a problem with people who don't use a routine but find it difficult to understand how they manage! I just know it would not suit me as I like routines too!

I'm following Gina with my DS who is now 12mths & I really believe that DP & I enjoy him so much more because of it. It really does suit him & I'm sure he is so confident & happy because he is secure in his routine.

To answer the original post we started at 1 week & on the whole had very few difficulties with him following the times foe feeds & sleep.

Sorry but I hadn't followed somekind of a routine I would have went under due to PND. I just didn't see the point in suckling a baby everytime it cried and meant I could actualy get out of the house too and plan a day out. Enjoying a baby is about doing what suits you both I suppose.